Montana Finnicum

Montana was born on March 21, 1927 in Culbertson, Montana, the third child of Isaac and Annie (Thompson) Goodson. She first attended school in Dugout, then junior high and 2 years of high school in Sidney where she made a lifelong friend Louie Dawley who preceded her in death on June 2017. Her last 2 years of high school were in Culbertson where she worked for room and board with the Tucker Moore family. She helped with his milk business and it was Tucker Moore who taught her to drive a stick shift and get her first driver’s license for 25 cents. She never took a driver’s test and never let her license lapse.

While in high school, she met Bernie Finnicum. They were married in Wolf Point on May 18, 1944. To this marriage were born Butch, Bill, Paul, Diane, LaVonne, Nancy, Susan and Bonnie.

They started their married life on the family farm at Andes Montana. They lived for a short time in Troy, Montana and then the remainder of their lives in Culbertson where Bernie managed the Gamble Store. Montana eventually had the opportunity to work as a telephone operator which she enjoyed, and made lifelong friends who still met for breakfast once a month. When the telephone company went to dial, Montana helped at Gambles until she went to work at the Skogmos. Skogmos eventually became The Other Place when it moved down the street. Montana managed the store until she was eighty eight, and enjoyed visiting with her customers.

Montana, besides being a busy mother and wife, was a gracious host to the many people who came to her home. Everyone was welcome in her home and no one ever went away hungry. She enjoyed cooking and sewing, visiting with old friends and new people she just met. She liked to take trips, from business trips with Bernie to wrecker calls with Paul.

Montana was a long time member of the Culbertson Saddle Club and looked forward each year to getting her motorhome out to the camp to take care of registration for the trail ride.

In her last years, as she dealt with health issues, she showed what she was really made of. Three trips in the air ambulance, weeks in the hospital, and dialysis three times a week, her strength of character and absolute faith in God showed as the perfect example to all who knew her. She never gave the nurses a hard time but befriended each one and knew them all by name.

She was very instrumental in planning her 90th birthday party in March. She bought over 100 stuffed animals to give away to all the little kids, her dialysis family, and anyone she thought about. Her birthday was a very memorable day for her.

She was a lifelong member of the Community of Christ church. Her unquestioned faith in God and the Lord Jesus Christ was never more evident than when she chose to end her dialysis, place her trust in God and walk through death’s door unafraid.

Montana was preceded in death by her parents, her husband Bernie, brothers Steve and Donnie, sisters Jo, Thelma, Lucy, Nellie, Nettie, and Carol. Montana was the matriarch of the Finnicum family, and the last of her generation.

She is survived by her brother Glenn Goodson, her sister Effie Rinke, her children and their spouses, Butch and Chris, Bill and Vicki, Paul and Lynne, Diane and Steve Hampton, LaVonne and Jack Scotson, Nancy and Tom Hansen, Susan Finnicum, and Bonnie and Jack Hellweg, twenty-one grandchildren, and a bunch of great-grandchildren and great-great grandchildren.